Why do we do it?
Special thanks to friend Pat Daly for the use of these beautiful images, all rights reserved.
Last I checked, Hartford, Connecticut is almost exactly 3000 miles opposite the country from our hometown in Portland, Oregon. A cool trot across thirteen states to make that voyage in our Promaster. A big journey. Fortunately, the Promaster is well-versed in vacationing with our friends in pockets of middle or eastern America during cyclo-cross season, once we’ve launched the season and made it partway east. After our last race weekend in Northampton for instance, the van had some quality rest in western Mass while the rest of us hopped flights home to examine what personal edges and advantages we could bring forth for one last dance this season at the big one: Nationals. In Hartford.
Why do “The Nationals” matter? Why is it compelling to set your sights on such a big event firmly planted on the far end of a long road that is a season? And why especially is it worth it to make the effort to travel so far from home for a single day in the wintery elements of perhaps “just another race course?”
You could offer a lot of answers—one for every rider in fact—and we do in this recountment of this year’s experiences. But, reader, I find it most important to keep revisiting this concept of being a part of something that’s much bigger than our solo selves, and prioritizing experiences that take us outside of our known realms with guaranteed creature comforts. That pairing is powerful and will provoke growth.
I can also tell you that when championship events are on that last page of the calendar, marked with a fat red “X,” they are thus imbued with a heady combination of purpose and keen intent from so many enthusiastic individuals that the air at the venue that week of Nationals is of a different quality. That purpose and intent is shared. Those Nationals events, marked with dreams and marched toward with careful preparation—those events are bound to deliver un-make-up-able stories, unique, dripping with emotion and excellence. Who doesn’t want to see a person’s biggest effort up close? And be so physically close to these exhibits? To have the chance to learn something in a one-time classroom? Or to be your best athletic self on this year’s biggest stage?
Perhaps it’s easiest to explain if we revisit the first Hartford. 2017 CX Nationals was also in Hartford, and it was a special event for the formation of this version of Team S&M.
In November of 2016, we had “field tested” the S&M elite women’s team concept at CXLA. I, Brenna, flew down to support Clara and Beth Ann while they jammed out two awesome race days on an untraditionally slick, rainy SoCal track. The seed was planted.
Then, in January 2017, Erik, Clara, and dear S&M-er Mike Wilson attended the famously snowy championship week in Connecticut. Clara would bring home a sixth place finish (within podium contention) in the U23 women’s event, her second year racing a Nationals, and incidentally also just the second championship to host a U23 women’s race run separately from the Elite women’s event. Momentum was building, for us, and for women’s cycling.
(It’s worth a trip down the YouTube wormhole for clips from that Hartford Nationals, should you desire more compelling cyclocross stories underlining why Nationals is special and Nationals matters…)
You hopefully know what followed for S&M over the next three seasons. And I bet you already know that at this 2022 Hartford Nationals, Clara beautifully defended her champion status for the third time. Seeing her continued growth and success inspires us and reinforces our commitment to women’s sports and cyclocross. Her story will always be a part of our story.
So here we are, in the present. Our 2022 team roster was bigger than prior seasons, with five elite women and one junior, plus a beautiful cadre of “extended family” traveling from OBRA with us to various events around the country. For Nationals, I had visions of a women’s elite field flooded with orange-and-blue jerseys, each harvesting their own rewarding finale after a thoughtful season of work and progress both at home and on the road. Selfishly, I wanted to see this since, in my mind (but not just my mind), Team S&M has been a critical contributor within women’s cycling and development for a very long time. And I wanted to rebroadcast that at our nation’s biggest event.
Unfortunately, each of us on the elite team had to contend with poorly-timed illness or injury in late November. Two COVID positives, two heavy RSV cases, and one spiral tibial fracture. After that, Sophie and I and junior rider Madeline were the riders recovered well enough to still make the trip.
As a manager of the elite program, of course my focus would be on the story our team might specifically offer in the elite women’s race, since we focus most of our efforts in that field. In retrospect, my original focus and expectations were perhaps shortsighted.
In addition to supporting the steady growth of quality ridership in women’s cycling, Team S&M looks out for the health and growth of the sport as a whole, and the health of its community. And we keep it fun.
This year in Hartford, our tents housed nine OBRA juniors, one U23, our two elite women (me and Sophie), and a lot of enthusiastic parents and staff, many of whom did their own category or age group races.
In the elite women’s race, we were excited to see our homegirl Clara once again take a commanding win, to see our Portland friend and training partner Jenna Lingwood take 5th, and to see Sophie fight and just barely miss the top-10, and the day after she brought home a nailbiter ride for third place in the Women’s Singlespeed event! Just remember, Sophie, Singlespeed is a race for “try hards!” For my own execution in the elite race, it’s tough to feel proud as I’d really hoped to fight well inside of the top-15 or lower. I started out there, but finished in 17th. Lessons and fuel for next season. It’s good to leave an event with specific things you know you can do better, but bittersweet to know you left some homework undone.
Listen up, World: we are incredibly proud of S&M rider Summer Newlands’ victory in the inaugural US Non-Binary Cyclo-Cross Championship event. Making history. Summer applied steady pressure on an ever-changing, muddy/frozen course to ride their own race from start to finish, crossing the line with lots of time to celebrate their first national title. This event was meaningful, the first of its kind for our governing body.
Summer has worked as a key staff member with our elite women’s program this season, helping me prep all of our equipment and working the circuit with us when we travel, providing mechanical and technical support, learning what it means to be a traveling team staff member. The same was true for the week at Nationals. Summer traveled with us to support us as well as the juniors, and also to race in Saturday’s Non-Binary event. Strong work. I think it’s important to share that Summer also grew up in OBRA junior development and has, in adulthood, carried over as a consistent mentor and technical coach within the current Oregon junior community, extending their own experiences forward to the next gen. They take that job seriously and perform it well, and it’s reflected in the efforts and growth of our kids, on and off the bike. Summer is also—obviously—an awesome athlete and excellent human being. To see Summer take this National title is meaningful on several levels. We’re grateful and proud to see their hard work on full display, and we’re honored that they’re a part of our S&M family.
So let’s bring this full circle, finish the lap. Hartford is over 3000 miles away from Portland, Oregon. What’s the point of making a huge trip for a racing event?
Why do it?
To get outside of your comfort zone. To focus on yourself, and also not focus on just yourself. To set a true challenge and to be challenged.
Because, really, these racing events have great potential to build up relationships and community involvement. With their compact tracks and fair-like environment, with the frites and the vendors and the bright colors, announcements and celebrations. We feel the benefit of this community and friendships after committing to this world for many years, but we would argue that you can also feel it immediately without all that time invested. We feel the recognition and mutual respect from other players, other teams, event organizers, and we don’t take for granted the visits in our tents, the hours together, the shared intent. We feel the recognition when we hear comments from racers based in other states who know of Bridge City and the racing in OBRA and now follow all of it, who follow along with what happens in our home, our backyard, because they know a little something about us and because they care about what the sport is outside of their immediate world.
And that experience flows the other way, too. When you invest in the stories of the athletes who keep at it, their growth and success is something you revel in, too. Clara’s consistency. Raylyn’s breakthroughs. Austin’s hard work. Kerry’s talent. If you haven’t watched Curtis White’s tactical, steady-handed victory in Hartford, stop what you’re doing and pull it up. It was a homecoming, and the airy snowfall carried an electric current I think.
The passionate, compelling stories that domestic cyclocross generates are so vibrant. Every rider demonstrates hard work ethic, hunger to level up but humbleness, big appreciation for athletic process, a fine tuned sense of hanging in the balance, threading the needle, riding a thin line. And the fans, the attendees, they get to see it all up close. They are a part of the story as it happens, running the entirety of a course in a few minutes, racing the same course, visiting the tent city, listening to the trainers hum, comparing differing lines as they change day to day and hour to hour, hearing the textures under the tires, appreciating all of the fine touches required to make a cyclocross race successful. Sympathizing. Results matter, but emotion lingers, and emotion inspires followings, loyalties, buy in.
Come to Nationals next year.